ITALY 2005
Traveling in Italy on a Perillo tour was an interesting experience. We arrived in Rome and had free time until Dinner. We used our free time in Rome to walk to the Spanish steps. The Spanish steps are a meeting place were people hang out play music. The story goes that a Spaniard man and Italian women meet at the steps and fell in love.
Dinner is were the fun started.. Our dinner at a nice quaint restaurant gave us a real feel of Italy. We were sung to by two men and a girl whose voices would have made Pavarotti smile. The music, good food and lets not forget the wine made us all feel like we knew each other for years As our singers sung to us we felt like there was love in the air especially the (love me tender) number our singer sang to my sister Louise. The girl singer had a marvelous voice and did her job like a professional. We found out later she was pickpocket on her way to work that night. She performed marvelously smiling like nothing happen. Our first day in Italy ended with lots of wine.
As we boarded the bus for our trip to Florence we were told many important things to look out for during our travels. Pickpockets, Gypsy’s, and THE AUTOGRILL. The autogrill is rest stop that seems to be all over Italy. There are rules you must follow in the autogrill if you want Coffee, Cappuccino etc. You must go to the cashier and purchase it, they will give you a slip that you bring to the counter and wait for your food. You also have a cafeteria at the autogrill and a store to purchase candies and other snack food. That is were I purchase my first bottle of Limoncello more on that later. The autogrill is very efficient you enter in one way and have to go all around the store to exit. The efficiency of the auto grill is the only non chaotic place in Italy. Everything else is mass chaos. The lines, the crowds and of course the drivers. Drivers in Italy seem to do whatever they want to do. The odd thing is they cut each off but there is no hand jester or harsh words just blank stares. The scooters go through traffic weaver in and out like a bob sleder trying to win the race.
While at the dome my sister Sally and I climbed the 426 steps to the top of the dome. It was a beautiful sight from the top I am glad it was not hot that day cause climbing those steps in hot weather would be very uncomfortable.
Inside the dome you travel on a catwalk that circles the dome and you see beautiful paintings all around the dome. There is a painting of an angel that you can see from the catwalk the angel is 17 feet tall it give you real perspective of how big the dome is. After taking a number of photos from the top of the dome we made our way down. The steps are very steep and you have to be very careful. When we reached the bottom I went to a shop were I was looking for a tee shirt that says I went to Italy and climbed the 426 of the dome but to my surprise they did not have one. Note to Italy tourism board make up these shirts Americans like me would buy them.
In Florence we went to a leather factory were we saw some beautiful leather garments. Our salesman picked my sister Barbara out of the crowd and let her try on a beautiful leather jacket that looked like it was made for her. Leather, gold and beautiful artwork is what Florence is noted for.
From Florence we traveled to Venice. Venice is a city of 116 islands connected by 409 bridges. We took a gondolier ride in VENICE which is were I found out I have another sister. The gondola boats take six people, in my family we were only five. One of our group members Ruthann joins our family and became a sister to us. Thanks Ruthann. The gondola traveled through small passageways in between the buildings being crazy Americans we sang songs and had a ball doing it. The gondolier driver must have thought we were nuts. We cruised to the Grand Canal were our group assemble together and one of the gondolier boats had a singer on it and he sang for us. It was a wonderful experience which I hope to do again one day. We had pizza in VENICE and discovered that what we call pepperoni they call salami. In Italy you get all different kinds of pizza. I notice and I could be wrong but the more north you go the less cheese you get on pizza being a cheese lover I was happy we would be going south.
. That night a bunch of us stayed up after dinner and had some wine, beer and limoncello. Limoncello is made from the skin of the lemon. I enjoyed it but most thought it was had a strong taste of lemon. Early the next morning we were on the bus traveling to Sorrento. It’s a long ride from Florence to Sorrento 7 hours and two stops at the autogrill. There are times on a tour when traveling long distances can be boring this is were meeting new people and enjoying there company come in very handy. Our group got along very well and new friendship developed. In Italy Things change, the time is changed, Italy is six hours ahead of NY. Names also change in Italy. Our friend Frank became FRANCO, My dad Charles became CHUCK and my family became THE FAMILY. Meeting new people and having fun makes the days go very fast.
Photography in Sorrento is unbelievable. Sorrento roads climb up to 2000 feet. The views are spectacular from almost any location. You can see MT VESUVIUS across the bay of NAPLES. I was not able to bring a tripod with me on the trip so everything was hand held. I did not bring film with me because digital cards are so much easier to carry. I had 6 one gig compact flash cards with me, which take up the space of 3 rolls of film I shot over 1300 photo on those cards if I used film I would have had to bring almost 40 rolls. I also brought with me the Epson p2000. The p2000 is a 30 gig hard drive with a 4” screen that I backed my work up on. I like to keep 2 copies of all my photos till I get home and upload to my computer.
We also visited the sistine chapel and the Vatican At the sistine chapel you are not allowed to photograph anything. I don’t know why, but there are guards that make sure you obey. While cleaning my lens a miracle happened my finger must have hit the shutter three times by accident. On my camera appeared images of Michael Angelo wonderful ceiling painting. I do not think Michel Angelo would have mind me taking photograph of his works of art. Our guide told us a story of Michael Angelo famous painting (Judgment day) on the wall of the chapel. There is a scene from hell. A bishop that Michael Angelo was having problems with was painted into the scene. The bishop complained to the pope about this. The pope answer to the bishop was a pope in hell has less power. Michel Angelo also painted his own face onto a leg of a man that the skin was peeling off. That was a message to the pope at that time to tell him that he was skinning him alive with what he was paying him for his artwork. I think Michael Angelo and I would have gotten along well. .
In Rome we also visited the Coliseum. It is a marvelous structure that has withstands the test of time. Our guide told to us something that I did not know. I always thought the coliseum was missing parts of its structure because of age and weather. The Coliseum was built so well that when it was not in use anymore they took the stones to build other building in Rome. It was not time it was man that made the coliseum what it is today. The Romans ruler in the Coliseum would raise his thumb up to spare a life and his thumb down to end one. .Today thumbs up are good and thumbs down are bad. I believe all of the people on our tour would put there thumb up telling all that our tour was great.
It was a wonderful experience seeing beautiful sights and meeting many new friends. I know THE FAMILY had a marvelous trip. ARRIVEDERCI A ROMA.
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